Production Watch: Bourne Disses Damon, Tony Scott for Top Gun Sequel, How To Reject A Movie Plot

Production Watch: Bourne Disses Damon, Tony Scott for Top Gun Sequel, How To Reject A Movie Plot

Matt Damon says he found out about writer-director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) directing the fourth Bourne installment the same way we did – the internet. He told Parade Magazine, “I found out they’re making another when somebody saw it on the Internet. Nobody bothered to call me.” Just as we suggested, he surmises: “I’m not in it, but even so, they’ll work Bourne into the title, I guess. Universal just wants to call everything the Bourne something. So I guess they are trying to make another franchise, and as they say, ‘It isn’t over until it’s over.'” Damon boxed himself into this corner by refusing to rejoin the franchise without director Paul Greengrass. Gilroy, who helped create the franchise as the writer of all the previous entries, has come up with a way to work around Bourne.

– Another franchise, another Tony: Top Gun 2will be directed by Tony Scott (he helmed the 1986 original). This is yet another example of Hollywood going back to the well, and a director seeing this as the best thing the studios have to offer. (The action maestro’s latest, Unstoppable, stars Denzel Washington and a runaway train; it opens November 11.) How else to explain his return to this 1980s franchise twenty-four years later? Tom Cruise may or may not return as Maverick, and fighter pilot mores have clearly changed. America’s relationship to war and the armed forces are worlds away from 1986. Scott told HitFix he was inspired to return to the fighter pilot world after he sat on a plane next to a hung-over twenty-something: “He must have been in his late 20’s and he was one of these kids. He said, ‘I partied all night.’ And I said, ‘What do you do?’ ‘I work [with unmanned aircraft in] the Air Force.’ But they operate these drones like it’s war games, but it’s for real.” The film is not his next priority: it’s “still a few years away,” he says. “I don’t want to do a remake. I don’t want to do a reinvention. I want to do a new movie.”

– Sick of franchise/remake talk? Moviefone posts the story rejection notice from Essanay Film Manufacturing Company from the years 1907 to 1925. Back then, Essanay loved originality. To be fair, it was a lot easier to reward original content when the industry was in its infancy. Number thirteen and seventeen have clearly been moved to studios’ “things we love” list. Perhaps the use of this slip should be reinstated – but for studios, not just screenwriters.

I’m getting tired of all these remakes and reboots, though I suppose it’s best that the studios stick to reviving mediocre 1980s films, rather than raping and pillaging the classics of the 1970s. If I ever hear the words “Zac Efron IS…Travis Bickle” spoken in a TV spot, I may go ballistic.

That being said, I think a time like now is ripe for me to finally make my break into Hollywood. If souped up rehashes of 80s flicks is what they want, I’ve got a few ready to deliver:

Extraordinary People – A young man nearly drowns with his brother during a boating accident, but is saved by a school of underwater aliens who grant him superhuman powers in exchange for his promise to return to the sea once a fortnight to serenade their alien colony with an a capella rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon.

Ferris Bueller’s Layoff – A loveable high schooler’s positive outlook is suddenly crippled when he loses his job at the local malt shop due to the economic downturn.

Guys Just Wanna Have Fun Too – An altar boy whose father suffers from Gulf War Syndrome finds himself moving to a small West Texas town. There he struggles to tune out the insults of his testosterone-heavy, football-obsessed peers as he shakes and shimmies his way to the finals of a reality dance show.

Meatballs 3-D – Bill Murray reluctantly returns to Camp Sasquatch at the behest of his grandson, played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse. He’s there to help celebrate Camp With Gramps Day, but becomes outraged when he sees that all the kids are stuck in their cabins checkin their Facebook pages and using their smartphones. He makes it his mission to show these tech-savvy youngsters how to really live it up, Camp Sasquatch style. Many things (from Silly Bandz to iPads) are hurled at the screen as he does anything and everything to win over the nihilistic campers.